Wilting ♞ Sandor Clegane

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She wrung her hands together, knowing that a seven month supply would not last, not even if rations were cut. They needed more grain, but that meant more people. "That's not enough," she murmured, hiding the defeat in her voice, as she walked ahead of the small gathering.

Arrel rolled up the scroll and tucked it beneath his arm, waiting for his Ladyship to issue her next command.

Anya turned on her heel, directly addressing the Maester and the two scribes that trailed behind scribbling down notes with pieces of charcoal. She had made up her mind. "Send ravens to all the villages and towns of the Riverlands." Her statement seemed to surprise Maester Arrel. "Tell them they can join us here. If they agree, then ask them to bring their stores to add to our own." Some would refuse, others would come.

"Of course, my lady," Arrel responded, knees dipping down in a quick bow. He turned and began barking commands at the pair of scribes.

The two of them wandered into the godswood, or rather Anya did and Sandor followed. A new dusting of snow and ice coated the ground beneath the great weirwood tree. She laid her hand just above the terrible face and gave a deep sigh.

The Hound looked at her in silent admiration. Her courage was her crown and she wore it like a queen. The others may have not noticed the darkening circles under her eyes or the way her skin paled but he had. "You ain't been sleeping," he announced. He'd wake in the night to find her sitting by the fire, reading or writing letters, sometimes she wasn't even there.

"I can't," she confessed. It was all a façade. The calm and poised lady that held council meetings and comforted those that came into the walls of Harrenhal was actually breaking on the inside. She was torn in two. She had been for quite some time.

Sandor looked at the twisted, grinning face of the tree. Its mouth and eyes leaked sap red as fresh blood. "But you can't go on like this either." He challenged.

Anya knew he was right. "I'm frightened of what is to come," she told him in a voice hardly above a whisper, but that wasn't the only thing driving her insomnia. "And I can hardly stand to know that Sansa, Bran, and Arya are in Winterfell and I'm not there with them."

Sandor took her face into his hands and held her steel gaze. "Then we'll go north."

Erac Cleaber stopped the horse and wagon in the courtyard of the great castle. He looked over his shoulder at the widow and smiled. Anya's resemblance to her mother was uncanny. "Welcome home, m'lady."

Shella Whent stepped down from the covered wagon and looked around at the castle that had once been the seat of her house. Now, because of her daughter and a Dragon Queen, it was the seat of House Whent once more.

It was different then she remembered it. Not as many fallen bricks lay on the ground. There were not as many holes in the roofs, and the thorny vines that had taken over some of the walls had been burned off. It looked like a proper castle, not the monstrosity that had haunted noble houses for generations.